I'll Be There
by Jann
Summary: The Shikon no Tama is finally completed, but Inuyasha died during the battle to retrieve the last shard. Kagome returns to her own time for good, but little does she know, she’s about to meet someone who will send her on a race against time and evil ... a
1. Prologue

:Author's Note:

Hooray for fan fiction! I haven't written one literally in years! In fact, this is one that I found from years ago and cleaned up because I liked the plot!

I do not own Inuyasha. I will not be posting this more than once. Once is enough.

The Shikon no Tama has been completed and Naraku is dead, but there's a catch: Inuyasha died in his human form during the battle to retrieve the last shard. After his burial, Myoga and Kaede explain that though Naraku is gone, now more than ever, the jewel must be purified and Kagome mustn't use it anymore to pass from time-to-time. They tell her that when the time comes, she will know what to do. Kagome says her good-byes to everyone and returns to her own time. Little does she know, she's about to meet someone who will change her life and send her on a race against time and evil ... again.

_I'll Be There_

Prologue

Kagome Higurashi drummed her fingernails softly on her open notebook and gazed out the window. The courtyard was empty, of course. Everyone was in a class, taking their finals. Kagome wasn't taking her final. She hadn't gotten past the first question. She had displaced her schoolwork so much that year . . . She had two hours left to make up answers for all one hundred and fifty questions. Math had never been her best subject, even when she had gone to class. She had expected to fail her exams, though. She should have realized that spending so much time out "sick" would catch up with her eventually.

"Sick" . . .

Unbidden, painful memories rose to the surface of Kagome's mind.

"_Lady Kagome! Hit it in the heart! The _heart!_" Miroku yelled. The monster was too big for him to suck into his wind tunnel without tearing it horribly, but even if Sango was able to slice the hundreds of wriggling tentacles from the gray-green mountain, they regenerated as quickly as they were removed. They had been fighting so long . . . they were all running out of adrenalin, and the spell-sheild Miroku had cast around her would wear off any moment._

"_I'm trying!" she screeched back. She set her sights once again at the heart of the monster, praying desperately for an opening between the flying tentacles. There! Quick, before it was too late! She pulled back and sent the arrow flying. Would it hit? She heard a terrible roar of pain from behind her, and she whirled around instinctively before she could see the final destination of her arrow. Inuyasha?_

_A thick, green tentacle had been severed from the beast by Hiraikotsu, clean-cut and glowing still from the dark magic that had created it. Wrapped in its suffocating grasp was her dearest, closest comrade. The wicked glow was just enough to shine off angry azure eyes. They glazed and deadened before Kagome._

_His face was frozen in fury, his jaw tense and his shoulders hunched even as the tentacle slowly released him. He slumped over, his neck and back coming to rest at an horrible, unnatural angle. Kagome knew then and there that he would never move to correct the position again. His eyes, dumb with oncoming death sluggishly angled up to her, and his jaw dropped down he soundlessly mouthed words that would never find voice again. He was dying. He was dying right before her eyes._

"_S . . . sorry, Kag," his lips came to form before his eyes slid shut. "Sorry."_

_She screamed and threw her face to the ground beside his. She screamed again, and lunged at him. With sudden strength, she grabbed him under the arms and dragged him away from the beast that had been his death. His neck was broken, causing her screams to deteriorate into sobs. His blood-soaked robes were covered in dirt and the black-purple slime of Naraku's monster. She had always known he could die, but she had never anticipated that it would happen then, on the night the last shard was found._

Kagome flinched when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Miss Higurashi, perhaps you would like to . . . uh . . . begin your test," the teacher suggested softly. Kagome stopped drumming her fingers. Her nails had grown in the weeks since her last visit to feudal Japan. When she had been there, she was _constantly _being tested, in her ability to run, to shoot and to fight. Now . . . now she spent her time trying to find some new purpose in life. Everything was so pale in comparison to staying alive, to finding more shards, to getting home in one piece.

Kagome picked up her pencil and averted her eyes to the test. That seemed to sate the teacher. He moved on from her desk. Kagome didn't begin her exam though. She stared at the page and wondered why she was even bothering with it. It wasn't like she cared. She didn't see how she could ever care again.

_I could go back,_ Kagome thought to herself. Just one more trip through the well. Myoga told her she shouldn't travel through time with it anymore, but what if she just used the Shikon jewel once more, to go through and stay through? She could become a miko. She had been told again and again that she had the natural talent and skills. It was her duty to purify the jewel, after all. That was one of the few things Kaede and Myoga could agree upon.

She gave herself a mental shake. She didn't need to think of these things now. She didn't need to think about the forest or the amazing tree she had found him attached to, or the little village that rested on the edge of the forest. She didn't want to go back there. She wanted to go back to before that final battle and do whatever it took to keep Inuyasha from going after Naraku _that _night, when he was most vulnerable of all.

"_Feh. You go out there human all the time, and you don't see me having a fucking fit over it," he had said._

Kagome cringed and bit back the tears that threatened to roll down her face again. She had to think about her mom, and Souta and her Grandfather. She had to think about her future. That was what was important _today._

_Feh. Yeah. Important,_ Kagome thought bitterly. There were a million things that were more important that a math test.

_Miroku wiped the sweat from his brow and looked down into the pit he had just climbed out of. He put his arm around Sango's shoulders protectively, and for once she didn't swipe him away. Instead she buried her face in his robes. He gave a fleeting glance at Kagome, who sat at the edge of the pit, hugging her knees to her chest defensively. Her gaze was locked onto to the inhabitant of the grave, the hanyou that had been known as Inuyasha. "Well, I guess that's that," he said softly, bitterly. He reached for a shovel to cover his dead friend's face, but Sango elbowed him in the ribs. Kagome, staring wistfully into the pit, didn't notice the pointed look Sango had shot at her._

_Miroku seemed to understand. He nodded and they turned to leave quietly. He reached down and tugged at Shippou's vest. The kitsune offered Miroku a somber look before he hopped onto Kirara's back, and they left their friend alone at the Bone Eater's Well._

_The location of the grave had been Sango's idea. That way, even when Kagome was in her own time, she would know exactly where Inuyasha laid._

_Kagome didn't turn, though she heard the steps disappear in the direction of the village. She was concentrating on the pain that kept trying to overwhelm and kill her so that she could join him in the grave. She was almost surprised that they trusted her not to try to kill herself. They must have known that she was more cowardly than she was romantic. She supposed that had known that herself for a long time._

"_You dumb wench," she could hear him saying. "Stupid girl. Always crying."_

_And she was crying, she realized. Tears streamed softly, slowly, steadily from her eyes, so she covered them with her sleeves. "Inuyasha," she whispered into wrists. "Why did you have to leave me now?"_

_Silence. No answer. There would never be any answers again. Kagome's eyes, already swollen from crying, burned as she cried new wounds. She released her knees and let her legs hang over the side of the grave. A bit of dirt crumbled over the side to land to the right of Inuyasha's lovely, human head, and Kagome continued to weep bitterly. Revenge? There was no revenge for her. They had killed Inuyasha's assailant. _

"_Bring him back," she whispered to the Shikon no Tama around her neck as her tears slowed. Wasn't it supposed to grant wishes? Why didn't it bring him back? _

_Stupid. Stupid idea. Kaede had said that almost anything could trigger the jewel's magic. Since the jewel was so impure from it's travels, it's use for evil and the evil hands that had held it's many facets, it would surely corrupt any wishes that she had hoped it would grant._

"_Inuyasha," Kagome wailed silently. "Inuyasha . . ."_

Kagome fiddled with her pencil. She sighed softly and looked back down to the first question to push the image of Inuyasha's cold face away. She didn't know anything about pre-calculus. She had actually barely passed trigonometry. She knew she shouldn't have come. She should have stayed home.

_What, and feel sorry for yourself? Listen to Mom clean the house and make small talk with Gramps and pretend that everything's just fine, that Inuyasha's not dead and . . . and . . ._

"Miss Higurashi, I get the impression you aren't _able_ to complete the test," the teacher said suddenly.

Kagome startled inwardly. She didn't answer, only fiddled with the pencil a bit more urgently.

"Miss Higurashi, perhaps you would prefer not to take the exam? I'd hate to waste my time and yours," he continued dryly.

"I've just been sick so much this year . . ." Kagome murmured. Of course she wanted to get out. At that moment, there was nothing she wanted more than to get out of that room. She wanted to sleep. Maybe if she slept long enough she would forget she'd ever fallen into that well.

"You haven't even begun, Miss Higurashi. Go home. I'll see you next semester," the teacher said, taking the papers from her desk. She felt as though at least a fraction of the burden had left her. It made it easier for her to stand up, without feeling the weight of her life. He stood up straight again and walked past her as she gathered her things together to leave. A few faces perked up at her disruption, but Kagome ignored them. Hojou looked up and smiled blandly at her. She forced herself to wave slightly, but at the look on her face, his smile broke apart. He looked back to his test.

Kagome burst through the school's doors and out into the courtyard. Across the basketball courts she could see someone wandering around.

_Hm. Another flunk-out,_ she thought to herself as she watched the figure, clad in the boys' black uniform meander it's way around the courts, towards the double-doors, and then away from them again.

The breeze made her a little light-headed, and she stumbled to the bench beside the doors. In the mornings before school, these benches, this whole courtyard was filled with screaming, laughing people, but now it was silent. Everyone else was inside, leading the life that they were supposed to be leading, letting themselves be carried along the paths that their parents had set out before them. They would have children that would move just as quickly, just as fluidly.

She put her head between her knees to clear it. She was the rut in the path. She wasn't like all those other people. She had seen things that they had only seen in nightmares. She had found friendships that they would never understand, and then left it all behind. She wasn't a member of this world or the other. She was some kind of monster, trapped between. She was like the youkai that had craved the Shikon no Tama. She felt it's weight around her neck, and she hated it. She had lost everything because of this jewel. First her "normal" life, then the boy she lo . . . well, her best friend, and then the only friends she had remaining, trapped in a timeline that she couldn't return to. She hated it.

She stood suddenly, dropping her books. Despite the figure coming closer to her, she reached into her blouse and ripped out the jewel. The chain it was attached to gave easily, and she pulled her fist from her shirt.

"Why?" she hissed at it, not opening her hand. She shook it. "Why do you cause pain to everyone that comes into contact with you? Why do _I_ have to be the one to carry you?"

The jewel said nothing from it's docile postion in her hand. A small, warm orb. Nothing more. Clenching the Shikon no Tama, she fell back the bench and began to cry once more. It seemed like she was always crying lately. _Life is unfair_, she scolded herself. _Get over it_. She sat up straight and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. _Concentrate on the now,_ she insisted. Was is just her, or was the Shikon jewel warmer than it should be?

It was. In fact, it was becoming warmer by the second. It was begining to burn her palm. Curious, she opened her hand to find . . .

. . . nothing. The jewel was gone, and she was left with an empty hand, red from the heat of what had just occupied it seconds before.

Her eyes widened. It was _gone?_ The Shikon no Tama was _gone!_ She jumped up. She just had it! Could she have dropped it?

"Oh no, oh no, oh _no_," she murmured, dropping to her knees. Perhaps it had fallen from her hand and rolled under the bench? No, nothing but dirt and a few weeds. "Ohno ohno ohnoo!" she whimpered a bit more urgently. She did a turn-around on her hands and knees to look in the grass on the other side of the bench. This wasn't happening. All that time spent searching, just so she could lose the goddamned thing in weeds by a bench in the school courtyard. She pawed through the grass, becoming more and more frantic as it became more and more apparent that the jewel was gone. She wasn't sure if she should laugh or burst into tears when a pair of shiny black shoes stepped before her, right into the path of her investigation.

"Hey, do you mind?" she demanded irately, forcing a few loose strands of ebony hair behind her ears. It was obvious she was looking for something. The least the intruder could do was respect _that_.

"Pfft," the owner of the shoes grunted. The left began to tap.

The tears that had been debating whether or not to fall a moment ago came to a strict conclusion. She put her face in her hands and sobbed harder than she had before. Harder than she had when she first saw him fall. Harder than when she had returned home and explained things to her mother, grandfather and Sota. It was all coming together. He was really really dead. She had loved him. Despite all the nasty things they had said to one another, his inability to decide between her or _Kikyou_, his irritability, his unaccepting, unappreciative demand for her services twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, his insistence that she be some kind of Shikon-shard-finding machine for _him_, so selfish, so Inuyasha. He was everything, and how was she living without him?

_Get a hold of yourself!_ she insisted, but it was in vain. There was nothing to hold onto to. She felt like her heart was being ripped from her chest.

_What would Inuyasha say! _she scolded, remembering shiny-shoes. There she was, sobbing uncontrollably at the feet of a complete stranger. _Crying shamelessly! Girls, he would say, Always _

"Goddamnit," came a voice from above. "Girls. Always fucking_ crying_. What's your problem, anyway? I just need to know where the fucking main office is. Can you dry your fucking cry-baby eyes long enough to fucking tell me that?"

Kagome choked. Exactly. That was exactly what Inuyasha would say, save the part about finding the principal's office. Who said that? Was it the voice of God or something? Inuyasha's voice right above her head?

That was stupid. It was shiny-shoes. Shiny-shoes was asking her where the school office was. _She _was the one that was so upset she was hearing Inuyasha's voice. She looked up to see the owner of the shoes staring down on her.

Long, dark hair and ice blue eyes. "Aw, fuck this. Just fucking forget it. I'll find someone who isn't having a fucking emotional breakdown." There was no mistake to it.

He turned to go.

"Inuyasha!" she cried before he could leave. She knew that face. After that night, she would never mistake that face again. Inuyasha's human form.

He turned back and looked at her suspiciously. "How the fuck do you know my name?"


	2. And Enter the Real Weirdness

_I'll Be There_

Chapter One

Kagome skipped her last exam. She already had to retake a semester of pre-calculus, and she didn't except her English exam to be any better. She could already speak the damn language fluently, but she cared about as much about how it worked as she did logarithms; it hadn't been worth the time when she had so many more important things to do. Like saving the world as everyone knew it.

Yeah, that would fly when she had to explain to the teacher why she had skipped.

The three day weekend had been nice though. She slept for most of it, and she was feeling a lot better Monday morning. She had even managed to convince herself that the person she had seen Thursday afternoon was just a new student. Not Inuyasha. Never Inuyasha.

"_How the fuck do you know my name?"_

Kagome shivered. What a strange coincidence. _Strange name. Not likely to have a double_.

She shook the thought from her head. Whatever she had thought she heard, she only heard because she was upset. Here she was, Monday morning. She had gotten through her first two second semester classes, and she hadn't seen the boy once. It was crazy. It was stupid. Anyway, she had enough to worry about anyway, what with the missing Shikon Jewel.

After Inuyasha . . . er, the boy, had turned back, she had simply grabbed her books and run. She had forgotten all about the Shikon no Tama until she got home that afternoon. She still didn't know what she was supposed to do. Should she look for it again? There was no way it would still be in the courtyard; even if it had been somewhere around the bench, it had to have been picked up by now.

Or should she just forget about it?

Humans couldn't use it, Inuyasha had said. And _these_ humans, the ones from her time . . . they wouldn't even know what it was. The Shikon no Tama didn't exist in her time, except in Gramps' crazy delusions. Maybe the reason it had disappeared was because it was used sometime between the feudal era and modern day Tokyo. That was a lot of space for the "right hands" to come across it and . . .

She knew that didn't make sense. _She_ had left the feudal era with the jewel. That meant it had seen no hands but her own.

The bell rang as she slid into a seat in her third hour class. She should just forget about it. It wasn't worth the stress. After all, here she was. She had all her limbs, and she felt relatively sane despite her ordeals over the past few days. Nothing that bad could have happened.

The teacher got up from the desk in the corner and walked to the front of the room. "Welcome to Philosophy. This will probably be the hardest class you take this year."

There were a couple snickers from the back of the room.

"Some of you are laughing. Is something funny?" There was no answer. "Well," she continued, "I'm glad to see that you all have excellent senses of humor. However, I'm going to tell you right now that If you don't plan on taking this class seriously, you can leave right now." She looked down the row, right at Kagome. "Any questions?"

Kagome paled. _She_ hadn't been laughing. The teacher was young, but she was very intimidating. She was tall with dark hair that curled into her chin, framing her long, straight face and sharp features. Kagome was about to apologize when she heard a chair scrape across the floor behind her as someone got up. She sighed in relief. The teacher hadn't been looking at her, but the person behind her.

The relief didn't last long. The young man cleared his throat, and in a horribly familiar and charmingly innocent voice, he began, "I have a question."

Kagome choked. She knew that voice.

The teacher narrowed her eyes. She looked deadly, and Kagome knew that look as well. She knew it from complete strangers, because all their faces screwed into the same expression at this voice and it's implications. No, this wasn't happening.

"Well, ma'am, this is a philosophy class, am I correct?" Kagome refused to turn around like everyone aroudn her had. She was afraid of what she would be met with.

He didn't wait for an answer. "How can you, or anyone else for that matter, tell me what is and isn't philosophy? Can you really have a 'correct' philosophical answer? Please, ma'am. I don't mean any disrespect, but couldn't I, theoretically, have a differing philosophical view from your own? Therefore, why is this class to be any more or less difficult than any of my others?"

"What's your name, young man?" the teacher demanded. She crossed her arms and stared down her nose at the boy behind Kagome.

"Uh . . . Miroku, ma'am," he said sheepishly. "Ashia Miroku. You won't . . . kick me our of your class, will you?"

Kagome put her face in her hands. She didn't want to hear anymore, but even more than that, she didn't want to see. If she saw Miroku's face, the monk, her comrade and her friend . . . she didn't know what she would do.

"Quite the contrary, Mr. Ashia," the teacher smirked. From the tone of her voice, Kagome wasn't sure Miroku would much like the alternative. "In fact, I'm going to make a lesson out of you. To the front of the room, sir. _Now_."

"Yes ma'am," Miroku said.

He walked past her, but Kagome didn't see. She was still covering her eyes. She didn't want to see.

"And you," the teacher said. "Young lady!" she added sharply when there was no answer. Kagome uncovered her eyes. This time the instructor _was_ looking at her. Right at her. "That's right, you. Your name?"

"Hi-Higurashi Kagome," she stammered. Miroku was dressed in the boy's uniform instead of his monk's robes, and he wasn't carrying his staff, nor was his right hand wrapped with prayer beads, but it was him. Unmistakable.

"Come up here, Ms. Higurashi, Mr. Ashia won't bite," the teacher snapped.

Kagome got up and stumbled to the front of the room. "Now, the two of you are a Roman God and a Roman Goddess respectively "

"Excuse me," Miroku interjected, reaching across the teacher for Kagome's hand, "I'm sorry to interupt, ma'am, but I must ask." He knelt before Kagome and through the giggles from the back of the room, he asked, "Miss, would you do me the honor . . . of bearing me a son?"

Something very strange was going on, and yet it wasn't that strange at all. In fact, it was almost normal. Kagome had to smile. "No, Miroku. But I'm honored that you would ask."

Inuyasha hated new schools.

In fact, he hated school in general. What's the point? All they taught was stupid stuff he sure as hell wasn't going to need to know when he grew up. He didn't know what he wanted to do when he grew up. But he didn't need to know _English _to do it. He knew that for sure.

So why was he here? Sitting in a classroom while some stupid old man tried to get him to understand _adverbs_ and _pronouns_ in a language he _never_ intended to learn to speak properly.

_Oh, but you should be fucking _grateful, he thought bitterly, remembering his brother, Sesshomaru's lawyer, Mr. Jaken's words. Oh yes, how kind of Sesshomaru to take in his weak little half-brother. "Half the blood, half the brains," Sesshomaru used to say when they were younger, before their father died, sending them each to their respective mothers. Inuyasha had been so glad to get away from his older brother, but the victory was short-lived. A mere five years with his mother before she died too, inconveniently seven months before his eighteenth birthday. He _had_ to have a legal guardian, the child services woman had said.

And he was so _grateful_ that his brother had stepped up to the plate. Oh, yes. Honorable Sesshomaru, a year out of graduate school with a high degree in psychology. Why couldn't Inuyasha be more like Sesshomaru, who was so gracious as to take him in?

If anyone knew anything, they would know Sesshomaru, the kind savior, had taken him in for two reasons: publicity and the extra tax money. He didn't treat Inuyasha _badly _or anything but it wasn't exactly a nurturing environment. And he had only been there for three weeks. He had hated his brother from the moment he was old enough to understand that he was never going to go away, and Sesshomaru had hated _him_ longer.

So here he was, halfway across the country, in a city he didn't want to be in, in a school he equally didn't want to be in.

A school full of fucking psychos, no less.

Sesshomaru would have had a field day with the girl he met the other day. He was looking for the principal's office, so he went to ask a girl he saw at a bench in the courtyard. But instead of acting like a civilized person when he got over there, she burst into tears at his feet. No explanation, not one word, she just turned on the waterworks the second he started talking.

To top it all off, when he turned to leave, she said his name.

"_Inuyasha!"_

He shuddered. First of all, it was weird that she knew his name. That in itself was strange. It wasn't like it was a common name, like she had just guessed it. It was a weird name. There were times in elementary school when he hated his parents for that name. But she had said it without him ever introducing himself. He'd never seen this girl before in his life! How the hell had she known his name?

And yet there was something . . . Almost familiar about the way she said it. As stupid as it sounded, it kind've made him feel . . . well, powerful. Like someone relied on him to protect her. Like someone really cared about him. It was a warm feeling. It was a weird feeling. But it was a good one.

_And that is even weirder than her knowing your name_, Inuyasha thought.

Finally, the bell rang. Inuyasha sat up and gathered his things. At least he hadn't seen her since then. Maybe she had transferred out. Maybe moved halfway across the country to start at a new school in the middle of the year. Maybe that's why she was bawling her eyes out. At any rate, if he never saw her again, he would be just fine with that.

And that was the end of that. No more stupid feelings, no more weird girls. He got up, and slammed right into someone passing his desk.

"Hey, wanna watch where you're fucking going?" he grumbled, trying to keep his loose-leaf papers from spilling around his feet.

"_Me?"_ the girl demanded. "You're the one that stood up just as I was walking by!" She had dropped her folders, and her things had flown in all directions. She knelt down to gather them from under the desks and across the aisle.

"Well, maybe next time you'll watch where you're walking!" he snorted, watching her clean up her things. He turned to go, but she grabbed the cuff of his pant-leg and jerked it.

"Help me clean up these papers, you little devil," she growled.

Inuyasha looked down. He wasn't sure if he should smirk at her or get away from her as quickly as possible. She was small, but she was wiry and she looked angry. He sighed. This wasn't worth the argument, or the tearing of his pants. Besides that, the English teacher was glaring at him. He had a feeling if he tried to take another step, he'd be verbally assaulted. He stooped down and began scooping the papers haphazardly together.

"Y'know, I'm only doing this because I feel sorry for you, you dumb wench," he growled. The papers bent and tore under his rough grasp as he shoved them at the girl.

"And I'm only sparing your life because you're new here," she growled back.

Did no one else think it was weird for strange girls to know your life story?

"What do you know," he muttered, crumpling the last paper and tossing it over her head as he stood. "Mind your own goddamned business, lady."

"My name's not 'lady,' " she spat, standing as well. "It's Sango, and maybe you should readjust your attitude." She looked him up and down. "I could turn you inside out so fast you'd be having your balls surgically removed from your tonseils before you knew what hit you."

She was gone before he could make another retort.

He jammed his free hand in his pocket. Girls. Fucking crazy.

This was too weird.

There she was, walking to lunch, like any other day in her own time . . .

. . . with Miroku.

"Yeah, I've never seen you either," he said as they headed for Kagome's locker. "Then again, I was in the foreign exchange program last year. I went to France. Maybe we saw each other in junior high."

"I kind've doubt it," Kagome murmured, stopping at C 435. 29 - 18 - 32. Normal. Except for the boy next to her that was supposed to be a monk in the Sengoku Jidai.

"Oh, I don't know. Anything's possible."

"You're telling me."

"So how about you, why'd you sign up for philosophy?" he asked.

She slammed her locker shut. "Well . . . I guess I was looking for something interesting to take. Y'know, shake things up a bit."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. The classes here are _so_ boring. My cousin goes to the school across town, and they have a _mythology _class. A class dedicated to ancient gods!" He shook his head. "Things are just too slow here."

Kagome closed her eyes. He didn't even know the half of it. A few weeks before, she had watched him con a rich man in a poor village that his house was haunted and he and his assistants needed to stay a few nights to rid it of the evil spirits.

"_I thought I'd warn you, sir, you house has been," he dropped his voice and looked from side to side, "infested. With evil spirits. They'll surely take over your wife and children! Kill you in your sleep! However, I can help you. I'll exorcise your home for you!"_

"_Oh, thank you kind sir! You're welcome to stay here as long as you like! Just please, rid us of these creatures!"_

They were so gullible that they usually not only let the lot of them stay in their homes, they paid Miroku handsomely. It was almost sick to watch, except that they needed shelter to stay alive. Especially when Inuyasha was . . .

Inuyasha. Miroku. Were Sango and Shippo here too? Should she be on the lookout?

That was silly. Miroku was proving that they were quite capable of handling themselves. They thought they were high school students. They thought they were from her time.

_And they are. There's no mistake about it. They know what cars and toasters and washer-dryer combos are. They're not lost like the _real_ Miroku would be. They're acting like they've lived here all along, _Kagome reminded herself.

What a joke. Somehow, she had a feeling she would have at least noticed Miroku before, and Inuyasha would no doubt be surfacing again soon.

"Hey, Miroku, I know we just met and all . . ." Kagome began tentatively, ". . . but do you mind if I ask a rather . . . personal . . . Question?"

Miroku grinned. "Ask away!"

"Have you lived here your whole life?"

Miroku looked slightly crestfallen. _Sorry, pervert_, she thought. She almost giggled, but she held back. "Yes," he answered just brightly, however. "My whole life."

"And do you know a girl named Sango?" Kagome continued. This was stupid. Why was she asking him questions like this. They made no sense.

To her surprise, he smiled dreamily. "Of course!" he exclaimed, practically swooning against the lockers. "Why, I've known Sango almost a whole semester now!" He turned his head to offer Kagome a serious look. "Of course, she's a bit . . . high-strung . . . . But no matter! Someday I'll win her heart! The beautiful Sango!" He sighed.

There was definitely something very strange going on in the fact that there was nothing strange going on at all.


End file.
